4 Reasons Why the Trinity Should Be a Common Part of Your Pulpit Ministry

This article was originally posted at my site. I’m married with three children, an SBC pastor, a PhD student at SBTS, and an average Southern Baptist. I’ve authored two books. You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and YouTube.

When we speak of God in the pulpit, we should speak of the Trinity. When we speak of the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, we should speak of God. We have a responsibility to teach the whole counsel of God, and to leave out the Trinity from our pulpit ministries is to leave out the New Testament/New Covenant revelation of God’s identity. Whether we’re teaching children, youth, or adults, when we speak of God, we should speak in Trinitarian language (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). Here are four reasons why:

1. The Trinity, He is God. There is one God who exists in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; same substance, but distinct in subsistence. These three Persons are coequally and coeternally God. All things are from the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit. The Father alone possesses fatherhood. The Son is begotten of the Father, but not of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. These Three Persons are One God.

2. He is the Foundation of Christian doctrine. Eliminate the Trinity, and you either eliminate monotheism (by embracing Tri-theism) or you worship a god who ontologically can become better or worse or has needs (Partialism). If there are more gods than one, then the distinct monotheism found in the Old Testament that distinguished Judaism from the surrounding nations is lost, and the god of the New Testament is different than the God of the Old Testament. On the other hand, if you affirm a god who has parts, you affirm a god who has needs, and who might not be able to keep His promises, fulfill His prophecies, or even answer your prayers (or hear them for that matter).

3. He is the True One who reveals all counterfeits. If you commonly reference the Trinity in your pulpit ministry, your hearers will naturally pick up an orthodox view of the Trinity, which will provide them with a foundation on which to answer the various false gods, false religions, and cults in their surrounding communities. The Trinity is one of the most essential distinguishing doctrines of orthodox Christianity. Neither Muslims, Mormons, nor Jehovah’s Witnesses affirm Him. I am unaware of any false religion that affirms the Trinity.

4. He is the Foundation of all Human Relationships. The Trinity should not be some obscure doctrine you dust off and bring out when you’re speaking against other religions. The Trinity should be the foundational example for all human relationships. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit perfectly love and fellowship with one another from eternity past; always have and always will. The Son, although in submission to the Father, does not rebel, balk, or scoff at His authority. The Holy Spirit, although in submission to the Father and the Son, does not rebel against, or scoff at the Father or Son. Christians–since we are created in God’s image and are being conformed to Christ’s image–must love one another in the likeness of God’s example. Furthermore, consider the coequal and coeternal reality of the Three Persons of the Trinity, yet the submission of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son submits to the Father, and the Holy Spirit submits to the Son and the Father. Now, consider how Christian wives are to submit to their husbands (Eph. 5:22-24), or Christian employees are to submit to their employers (Eph. 6:5-8), or Christian citizens are to submit to their governing authorities (Rom. 13:1-7), etc. Submission does not always mean “less valuable than,” for the Son submits to the Father, and the Holy Spirit submits to the Father and the Son, and yet, these three Persons are coequal.

The list of application can go on and on.

What are your thoughts? Do you often speak of the Trinity in your ministry?

This article was originally posted at my site. I’m married with three children, an SBC pastor, a PhD student at SBTS, and an average Southern Baptist. I’ve authored two books. You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and YouTube.

I agree with you. The nature of God is essential to everything else in Christianity. Once a person can come to grips with the unfathomable, unexplainable mystery of God’s nature, then all the other miracles and unfathomable aspects of Christianity fall right in line.

The only danger is trying to approach the Trinity from a purely rational point of view. That always leads to some version of some heresy. Simply because the Trinity is unfathomable and incomprehensible, does not make it illogical. In fact, it is perfectly logical that the Creator would not be fully comprehensible to a creature.

Thanks for the post.

February 14, 2013 4:42 pm

Christiane

wise words, FRANK

a saying from St. Augustine:
“Si comprehendis non est Deus”

February 14, 2013 5:11 pm

Jon

The entire revelation of Scripture reveals a triune God. The Trinity is foundational to everything else we think about.

February 14, 2013 6:42 pm

Jim G.

Good thoughts, Jared. The Trinity is indeed the foundation for all Christian doctrine.

There is a problem, however. All Christians everywhere agree the Son is submissive to the Father in the economy of the incarnation. Not all Christians agree that such submission can be read back into the “ad intra” triune relationship. This is a position defended by SBTS professor Bruce Ware and popular textbook writer and theologian Wayne Grudem (among others), and is commonly called “Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS).”

In my opinion, ESS begins with a “social” model of the Trinity that was originated by Jurgen Moltmann in his important book from the early 80s called “The Trinity and the Kingdom.” Moltmann argued for a radical equality based on his view that there is NO hierarchy within the Godhead, which translates into the abolition of all power structures within modern society. Ware and Grudem reject Moltmann’s conclusions while largely adopting his general methodology – reading the modern concept of “person” back into the Godhead with a dash of “the way things ought to be” socially, and, presto – ESS!

ESS and the whole social trinitarian experiment is becoming a hot topic in light of critical reflection on the so-called “trinitarian” revival in theology in the last third of the 20th century. In my opinion, ESS comes much too close to tritheism for my comfort zone. Social models of the Trinity often hold that each person of the Godhead possesses his own will and center of consciousness – something that would send the Post-Nicene fathers into high rotation!

That being said, I wish we talked about the Trinity from the pulpit and the blog a lot more. I think it would help us understand lots of other things better. Thanks.

Jim G.

February 14, 2013 7:34 pm

Christiane

“Social models of the Trinity often hold that each person of the Godhead possesses his own will and center of consciousness – something that would send the Post-Nicene fathers into high rotation!”

you’ve got that right

February 14, 2013 9:30 pm

Christiane

JIM G.
this may interest you:

On St. Augustine, a Father of the Church, and also a Doctor of the Church wrote circa A.D. 340-430
and
St. Ambrose, circa A.D. 340-397, also a Church Father and a Doctor of the Church.

It is hard to know the ‘interplay’ or communication between these two great teachers, but here are some words of St. Ambrose that are RELATED to the content of St. Augustine’s famous quote: ‘Love God, and do what you will’.

First Ambrose quotes St. Paul:
“Wherefore, too, the Apostle found nothing better to wish us than this, as He himself said:
“We cease not to pray and make request for you that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding walking worthily of God.” (Colossians 1:9)

And Ambrose writes this:
“He taught, then, that this was the will of God, that rather by walking in good works and words and affections, we should be filled with the will of God, Who puts His Holy Spirit in our hearts.
Therefore if he who has the Holy Spirit is filled with the will of God, there is certainly no difference of will between the Father and the Son.” (St. Ambrose, A.D. 340-397)

Augustine and Ambrose taken together seem to make a ‘good team’.

February 15, 2013 1:47 am

Keith Price

Good stuff Jared…

I think the doctrine is an important one. I do talk about this frequently and think about it as well. As you mentioned above it is vitally important to understanding relationship to which I would add specifically love, mercy, covenant, marriage, etc. Loving relationships with God and others should be the practical function of our Trinitarian theology.

Even though we will affirm the doctrine in our creeds, I wonder if our practice lacks there a bit. For example in the RCC we see a practice that reflects “Father, Son, and Holy Church.” In Baptist world I can see “Father, Son and Holy Scripture.” In Pentecostalism we might see Father, Son, HOLY SPIRIT. In SBC world, maybe it would be Father, SON, Holy Spirit. In those with a Messianic bent FATHER, Son, Holy Spirit. I suppose we all emphasize one or another from time to time and that is ok, but if we over emphasize we miss out on the power of the doctrine of the Trinity.

I’m an engineer by training. The triangle is pretty important in the stability of mechanical structures. It is true for the Church as well.

February 14, 2013 8:18 pm

Jon

It’s hard to think of the Father without thinking of the Son and Holy Spirit as less, yet all three persons are co-equal and co-eternal. In Greek Orthodoxy, the Father is thought of as the arche of the Trinity.

God in three persons, Blessed Trinity. How anyone could not see that truth so evidently set forth in the baptism of Jesus where all three persons of the one true and living God are set forth is beyond me. Your comments are most welcome Jared.